When I first encountered different surnames for children in the same family, I,
too, was thinking something was wrong.
As I continued my research; sometimes the names were further back in the line;
sometimes, the names were the godparent's names.
I told myself this made perfect sense (I have to make sense of things). If you
have just barely enough to feed your family, you want to give the child the
best chance to survive. If you die before the child is able to take care of
her/himself, you want to know someone will look out for the child. Bingo, you
give the child the name of the person who has more than 1 tree in the "quinta"
and know that there will be enough to feed the child and the person whose name
you gave your child will feel honored to look after your child.
This is how I rationalized the surname convention (or lack of one) for my
ancestors. I think my grandmother talked about this happening to people she
knew in the village where she was born. Celeste, Hayward, CA
Celeste Perry [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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